Jon Worth Eurobloghttps://jonworth.eu
Tue, 13 Nov 2018 12:18:41 +0000en-UShourly1Brexit and the myth of strength and decisiveness in British politicshttps://jonworth.eu/brexit-and-the-myth-of-strength-and-decisiveness-in-british-politics/
https://jonworth.eu/brexit-and-the-myth-of-strength-and-decisiveness-in-british-politics/#commentsTue, 13 Nov 2018 12:15:59 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=14313Sometime in 2000 or 2001 when I was still an undergraduate, Bogdanor and Butler had invited Jack Straw to one of their workshops about British politics at Brasenose College. Whether Labour might eventually get around to reforming the UK’s election system was all the rage back then, and Straw was […]

Sometime in 2000 or 2001 when I was still an undergraduate, Bogdanor and Butler had invited Jack Straw to one of their workshops about British politics at Brasenose College. Whether Labour might eventually get around to reforming the UK’s election system was all the rage back then, and Straw was opposed. The merit of our system, Straw said, was that it creates strong governments with reliable majorities in parliament. And that results in stability.

Looking at Labour’s 1997 landslide, and further back over British politics since 1945 – with the exceptions of parts of the 1970s, and Major held hostage by the Maastricht rebels – he was probably right.

Looking at it now I am not so sure.

The foundations of British politics are not as solid as they were, nor are they as solid as the British media and politicians think they are. Voting behaviour is not as predictable as it was, and has become disconnected from its traditional class roots. Region, age, education, and cities the rest have grown in importance as cleavages. Devolution has changed party politics and the UK’s political culture.

As the clock ticks down to the end of the Article 50 process, it looks like the House of Commons is deadlocked. There is a majority of MPs for Brexit in the abstract, but no majority for any one particular Brexit variant in detail.

How can this, the powerful Parliament, not be able to take a decision?

Everyone seems to simultaneously see that the House of Commons is unable to agree anything, but also to assume that some normality can still be mustered up somehow, from somewhere. That the Tories can somehow unify and get some Brexit deal through, or that Labour – somewhat more unified than the Tories – can instead prevail by forcing a new General Election. The culture – the two big parties slogging it out – remains resolutely unchanged.

A more collaborative political system would deal with this differently. There would be a genuine effort to work beyond party political lines to find a more widely agreed solution. But that has not happened to any significant extent. Any difference – the needs of Scotland or Wales in all of this for example – has been seen as a problem to be crushed and humiliated, not as something relevant to be accommodated.

And then – worst of all for Westminster – all Brexit business is being done according to an externally imposed deadline, namely the expiry of the Article 50 negotiation period on 29th March 2019. Parliament has in the past often been able to delude itself it is strong, by taking a clear decision to do nothing (like all the many delays on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow for example). But this time, on Brexit, that is not an option. Even a so-called “blind Brexit”, with all the crucial decisions left to the transition period, does not have a parliamentary majority on the UK side.

The UK side – its politicians, its commentators, its media – have not faced up to how unprecedented a situation this is. It goes against all of the British self perceptions of their politics.

When May says the negotiations are nearing the end game, there is some truth to her words. She thinks the end game is the UK Government agreeing a deal with the EU. No. The end game is the UK political system and deadlocked Parliament being confronted with its own weakness.

We are nearly there, thank goodness. But it’s anybody’s guess how this will all play out.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/brexit-and-the-myth-of-strength-and-decisiveness-in-british-politics/feed/1It did not work to get onto the EP list for the Greens – some lessonshttps://jonworth.eu/it-did-not-work-to-get-onto-the-ep-list-for-the-greens-some-lessons/
https://jonworth.eu/it-did-not-work-to-get-onto-the-ep-list-for-the-greens-some-lessons/#commentsSun, 11 Nov 2018 11:52:46 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=14283This was my speech at the Grüne Bundesdelegiertenkongress yesterday in Leipzig. It was enough to get me more than 200 votes for position 14 on the list, and 299 votes for position 20. But not enough to get an electable position. Why? The structures of power in the party won […]

This was my speech at the Grüne Bundesdelegiertenkongress yesterday in Leipzig.

It was enough to get me more than 200 votes for position 14 on the list, and 299 votes for position 20. But not enough to get an electable position.

Why?

The structures of power in the party won out. Deals between the Länder, and between the power blocs, delivered the votes for other candidates. Being from Berlin, a Land that had half a dozen candidates in the running, and a Land that had no formal vote to back any one candidate, was not to my advantage. The extend to which these deals were to hold was not communicated to some of the candidates – I know I was not alone in having incomplete information.

Focus on your speech, I was told. I did. I delivered the best speech I could. And I delivered a speech that was, in my view, a lot better than those delivered by other candidates. Also I prepared the best online communication campaign I could (here). And I brought unique and relevant experience. But it was not enough. You learn from this.

The campaign overall was an important learning process, but not a pleasant one.

The raw competition between candidates really grated. It’s not my style. And even getting information was a problem – I heard about a hustings in Munich at 11pm on the day before it was due to happen – because they had conveniently not thought to email all candidates. And 250 Euro for a last minute rail ticket was beyond my means. And to be accused of being a liar by the number 4 on the list was a particular low point. Whatever I am, I am not a liar.

Being a candidate takes a big toll on a person. I’ve invested a hell of a lot of time and money (both directly, and due to lost earnings as a freelancer) in this. And still people tell me I did not travel the country enough. It worries me the extent to which a bid like this is next to impossible for many people for financial, professional or personal reasons. And such a bid is not good for your personal life – those closest to me have invested ridiculous amounts of time, for free, as well, and for no useful outcome.

The wider reaction to my candidature has also been interesting. Or, more notably, the lack of reaction. No-one with any level of responsibility in the party has tried to say OK, it didn’t work, but there’s something you can do for us. In fact throughout this process no high level support in the party has been forthcoming. It’s me that is at fault here I presume though.

So what do I do?

Here I draw a line.

EU politics is my thing. It is not as if, like some of the people who were successful, I would want to keep trying for every possible elected position at every level until finally being able to get one.

Were I to want to run for the European Parliament in 2024, the way to do so is clear – I would have to spend far more time travelling across Germany, work within some of the policy committees (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Europa) for example, and then make sure my network were similar to that of those who were successful. I’d have to immerse myself in the party even more than I have to date (and I already spend more time doing party politics than I think I should). Further, having seen how this congress worked out I am not at all sure I want to do that, but I know that it is necessary.

I have also felt a change in people’s reactions towards my other work having announced I would run for the EP. “You’ve crossed to the dark side now!” a journalist friend of mine joked to me recently. But he sort of had a point – that I would then be treated differently in my EU analysis work while being a candidate.

There might have been a chance to get a low spot on the list, a non-electable position. But I opted to not do that for these reasons – it would have made sense were I trying to run for some other role in the short term. But I am not. And I do not do things by halves – I do them with my whole determination and commitment, and after this weekend’s congress I do not have that full commitment at the moment. I may at some point regain that determination, but at the moment I do not have it.

I tried. I failed. I learn. And I move on.

I’ll go back to being a normal member of the Grüne. I’ll scale down my party activity somewhat. I will campaign in the EP election, but in the ways I wish, and for the candidates I want to back. And I will continue to blog, to analyse Brexit, to be active in EU politics in other ways.

But, above all, please now in no way consider me a politician or a wannabe politician. I’m back to where I was. I hope.

But fascinating though those pieces are, neither directly answers the question about this that has been on my mind for weeks now: why did the UK side agree to the backstop in the first place, only to then seek to undermine it?

Was it done out of ignorance or misunderstanding? Or did the UK agree in good faith, and then change its mind? Or was the agreement for tactical purposes, simply to unblock negotiations, and the UK had no real intention of ever actually agreeing to a backstop?

Let’s start with the original compromise text agreed on 8th December 2017. PDF of the Joint Report here.

49. The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North – South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. The United Kingdom’s intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU – UK relationship. Should this not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North – South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.

50. In the absence of agreed solutions, as set out in the previous paragraph, the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, unless, consistent with the 1998 Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree that distinct arrangements are appropriate for Northern Ireland. In all circumstances, the United

Kingdom will continue to ensure the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market.

In short: the future relationship should prevent there being a hard border in Ireland. If not, the UK will propose solutions to the problem. And failing that, “full alignment” with the rules of the internal market and customs union for North-South cooperation – the backstop (end of paragraph 49). Paragraph 50 is also interesting, proposing a role for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

But then by the time the detailed draft was released on 28th February 2018 (see page 101 of the PDF here), the backstop had become a “common regulatory area”. The Commission came down on Ireland’s side. The backstop was given legal form.

Since then the issue has been stuck. May has said she could never agree to the backstop this way. The DUP says it would cross their blood red lines. The UK side shows no sign of budging.

But on the other hand – not without reason – the EU side and the Irish government point to the December text, and that the UK agreed to a backstop.

How you interpret how we got to this stage also then offers some idea about how the issue could be solved.

If all of this were a matter of misunderstanding, there might yet be a way forward – perhaps to narrow the circumstances in which a backstop could be needed, or some greater reassurance that a future trade deal would mean there would be no need for a backstop.

If the UK government had had a change of heart between December 2017 and February 2018, then a good starting point would be to acknowledge this. Within the space of three months the UK side went from agreeing to the principle of a backstop to then point blank refusing it, but has at no point shown any contrition, or offered any explanation. “We agreed to a backstop, but we should not have done that – we need another way to avoid a border in Ireland” would go a long way, but words to that effect have not been forthcoming.

Or – worst of all – if all of this was just a cynical tactical play to unblock the negotiations back in December 2017 and the UK even then had no intention of actually doing what it agreed to, the way forward looks bleak. If the UK digs in and refuses any backstop, and having now invested 10 months of negotiation time with it as a central element of the EU position, it looks like No Deal is around the corner. Neither side will cede.

There would of course be ways out – a softer Brexit where the UK stays in the EU’s internal market and Customs Union would mean there would be no hard border in Ireland, and no backstop either. But that is miles away from Theresa May’s stated positions on all the other Brexit issues. But there are just 21 weeks of the Article 50 period to go – not much time for solutions if the whole backstop idea cannot be made to work.

[UPDATE 31.8.2018, 2330]

What – based on this tweet – I thought was a simple error, actually turns into an interesting caveat. The first draft of this blog post wrongly used the paragraphs of Barnier’s report of progress to the Council, rather than the Joint Report text that is now cited above. The PDF of the full Barnier text is here. These are the important paragraphs:

Whilst the United Kingdom remains committed to protecting and supporting continued North – South cooperation across the full range of contexts and frameworks, including after withdrawal, the common understanding provides that the United Kingdom aims to achieve this protection and the avoidance of a hard border through the overall EU – United Kingdom relationship. This intention seems hard to reconcile with the United Kingdom’s communicated decision to leave the internal market and the Customs Union.

Should these objectives not be met through the future relationship, the United Kingdom committed to proposing a specific solution to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland for agreement with the EU. The EU will need to ensure that any such solution does not affect Ireland’s place in the internal market, and consequently the integrity of the internal market.

In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom committed to maintaining full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North – South cooperation, the all-island economy, and the protection of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement. In this context, implementation and oversight mechanisms for the specific arrangements to be found will be established to safeguard the integrity of the internal market.

There is no mention of the Assembly in relation to the backstop, as there is in paragraph 50 above. And two separate lines are added on the integrity of the internal market. Interesting emphasis. However the crux of this – the backstop – is pretty much word for word identical in both texts.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/the-irish-border-backstop-why-did-the-uk-agree-it/feed/3European Parliament selection – campaign videohttps://jonworth.eu/european-parliament-selection-campaign-video/
https://jonworth.eu/european-parliament-selection-campaign-video/#commentsSun, 28 Oct 2018 22:47:37 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13962As explained in this blog post, I am seeking a place on the German Grüne European Parliament election list. The decision as to who makes it onto the list will be taken at a party conference on 10th November in Leipzig. This is my first campaign video, examining whether Germany […]

As explained in this blog post, I am seeking a place on the German Grüne European Parliament election list. The decision as to who makes it onto the list will be taken at a party conference on 10th November in Leipzig.

This is my first campaign video, examining whether Germany would be ready to accept a candidate who does not speak perfect German. Here is the video subtitled in English!

]]>https://jonworth.eu/european-parliament-selection-campaign-video/feed/2The European Parliament election and Brexit delay – not a major headachehttps://jonworth.eu/the-european-parliament-election-and-brexit-delay-not-a-major-headache/
https://jonworth.eu/the-european-parliament-election-and-brexit-delay-not-a-major-headache/#commentsMon, 22 Oct 2018 11:35:08 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13901Brexit negotiations are heading towards their hardest phase. With less than 6 months to go, with no solution to the Irish Border problem in sight, and with Theresa May in a precarious position within her own party, the chances of actually getting a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to both […]

Brexit negotiations are heading towards their hardest phase. With less than 6 months to go, with no solution to the Irish Border problem in sight, and with Theresa May in a precarious position within her own party, the chances of actually getting a Withdrawal Agreement that is acceptable to both sides look slim. Meanwhile both sides know that No Deal is a catastrophe. More so for the UK than for the EU, but painful nevertheless for the EU side too (and especially Ireland, France, Belgium and Netherlands).

One way out of this impasse would be an extension to the negotiation period foreseen in Article 50. I have long argued that this is a better way forward than pushing all the major decisions into a transition period. Extending Article 50 requires the unanimous agreement of the EU-27 – a high hurdle – but that would be possible to achieve if political turbulence in the UK (the ousting of May for example), or the impending danger of a No Deal, necessitated it.

Yet whenever I raise the issue of extending Article 50, I am hit with a question in return: what about the European Parliament elections, due 24-27 May 2019?

A very short term Article 50 extension – a matter of weeks beyond 29 March 2019, but Brexit still happening on a date before the European Parliament elections starting 24 May – might just about work. This could be used to deal with a last minute hiccup.

But an election where the UK is a Member State of the EU the day causes all sorts of headaches – German law for example says anyone voting in, or running in, the European election must be a EU citizen on the election day. If Brexit were to legally happen any time after the EP elections, even a day after, Brits resident in Germany would have the right to vote and to run for the EP. And were Brits in Germany to have this right, what about Brits in the UK…?

My conclusion is hence that any Article 50 extension would have to be either a couple of weeks, or – more likely – for months and months, well beyond the European elections. If you are going to extend past the EP elections, then better give yourselves some proper time for negotiations, not just make another negotiation cliff edge sometime in autumn 2019.

But that means organising a European Election in the UK.

This is not as hard as you might think.

The UK has a history of calling snap elections. The 2017 General Election in the UK was all organised within 7 weeks and 2 days. 7 weeks and 2 days ahead of 24 May 2019… is 3 April. After the timetabled Brexit day. The UK’s Electoral Commission has already also set aside a budget to organise such a vote, much to the chagrin of some Brexiters. So no problem UK side. Likewise parties had to scramble for candidates in 2017 – so would also be the case here. But finding people ready to run (not least from among the ranks of Remain people, and among EU-sceptics) would not be hard.

Likewise on the EU side the administrative hurdles are not too onerous. The rules that reallocated the UK’s MEPs to other countries make it explicit that these changes only happen if and when the UK leaves the EU. Page 7 of this Decision (PDF), the important part here:

We also have precedent for changing the composition of the European Parliament during a parliamentary term.

Ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon (that enlarged the European Parliament to 751 MEPs) was delayed due to the second referendum in Ireland. That meant that the extra 18 MEPs were only able to take up their seats on 1 December 2011, 2 years and 7 months after the 2009 European Parliament elections. This article explained how it all worked out.

The same could work for UK MEPs in the European Parliament post-2019. Elect the 73 MEPs for the UK, and those MEPs would then sit until the date that the UK leaves the EU. And then when the UK leaves and the UK MEPs leave the parliament, the extra MEPs from other Member States (Netherlands gets 3 more, Ireland 2 more etc. – all explained here) would then step in.

I have also heard the argument made that such an election in the UK would result in a whole slew of EU-sceptics and the populist right entering the European Parliament from the UK, and hence such an election should not happen.

This argument I find ridiculous.

If the British people are still EU Citizens on the day of the European Elections it is obvious that they should have the right to vote in the European Election, and it is the choice of those voting who they choose to represent them (this is what happened in 2014). During the Article 50 period the UK is still a Member State of the European Union, and not holding a European Election in a Member State of the European Union would be a democratic scandal.

The same would then happen in the European Commission – the UK would get a Commissioner up until the day that it leaves the European Union. The successor to Julian King would be chosen in the autumn of 2019 if the UK is still in the EU at this point.

So, to conclude: it would no doubt be an unusual election in the UK in May 2019. But the organisational hurdles in the way of such an election are relatively easy to surmount (and they are nothing in comparison to those a No Deal Brexit throws up), and if the UK is still in the EU on 24th May 2019 then not organising an election there would be unacceptable from a democratic standpoint.

[UPDATE 22.10.2018, 1430]
This posted prompted an interesting follow up debate on Twitter, with this being the most interesting part. A derogation under Article 22 from holding an EP election in the UK might be proportionate if Brexit were certain to happen, but had not happened, on the day of the EP elections. I think the conclusion of this would be that, if necessary, some technicalities could be solved still after election day, but these would need to be relatively minor. With this caveat I think the essence of this blog post nevertheless still stands.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/the-european-parliament-election-and-brexit-delay-not-a-major-headache/feed/1Anglophobia from the other side of the channel is not going to help the UK solve its Brexit woeshttps://jonworth.eu/anglophobia-from-the-other-side-of-the-channel-is-not-going-to-help-the-uk-solve-its-brexit-woes/
https://jonworth.eu/anglophobia-from-the-other-side-of-the-channel-is-not-going-to-help-the-uk-solve-its-brexit-woes/#commentsSat, 20 Oct 2018 09:10:56 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13848Seeing this tweet heartened me a lot this morning: Tired, but excited on the way to London. WE STILL LOVE YOU 💖#PeoplesVoteMarch pic.twitter.com/JFJu7GlSSg — Terry Reintke (@TerryReintke) October 20, 2018 That’s the spirit! And Terry (on the left) is a German Green MEP, and Sibylle (on the right) is one […]

And Terry (on the left) is a German Green MEP, and Sibylle (on the right) is one of the speakers of the German Greens’ EU Policy Committee (BAG-Europa) on their way to the People’s Vote march in London.

Why is this noteworthy?

Because this week an article entitled “Wie sich eine Nation zum Trottel macht” (“Watching a country make a fool of itself” – full translation from the German here) appeared in Spiegel, and was widely shared. It makes the typical points about British insularity, constitutional superiority, and drippy leaking homes. And importantly and wrongly conflates the behaviour of the British government with that of the British people. This retort from Steve Peers is about right.

The week before the satire television programme Heute Show took a similar line with a Brexit sketch, subtitled here:

Welke’s part about Boris Johnson is amusing, but the latter part of the sketch just rolls out tired old stereotypes about the UK – beer you can cut with a knife and fork. Seriously? That’s about as tired as a stereotype as calling all Germans Nazis.

Essentially Britain did not become a bad country overnight. It has always been – like many countries – a bundle of contradictions and differences.

It’s generally the case however that the German political and media elite only saw the nice bits.

They went for weekend trips to London, to Oxford, they visited Stonehenge or Brighton. They did not go to Ebbw Vale, to Sunderland or Preston. They see the wealth and diversity of London, not the anti-depressant use in towns like Blackpool. Add to that the widespread misconceptions about the behaviour of UK political parties, and a still sort of unfathomable shock about how much the Leave campaign lied to win the referendum for their side, and you have a heady mix.

So please by all means be tough to Theresa May. By all means point out the chronic contradictions in the UK government’s positions. And do also defend the EU above all.

But please don’t push away the UK as a country, do not push away its people. Do not use the tired old prejudices befitting of the UK tabloids that were one of the reasons Britain voted to leave the EU in the first place.

Today something close to a million people will be marching in London to demand that the UK stays in the EU, and 48% of the population – despite the campaign lies and the media barrage – voted to stay in the EU. Those people marching are disgusted at their government as well. And even a slew of pro-Brexit people are furious at Theresa May. Britain might have foolish politicians, but at least half of its people have not lost their heads.

This argument over Britain’s future is far from solved. And Anglophobia is in no way going to help solve it. Whether Britain leaves or not in the end, the EU is still going to have to deal with it. Schadenfreude towards the UK’s politicians, sure. But leave the negative prejudice behind please.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/anglophobia-from-the-other-side-of-the-channel-is-not-going-to-help-the-uk-solve-its-brexit-woes/feed/5When is the UK going to panic?https://jonworth.eu/when-is-the-uk-going-to-panic/
https://jonworth.eu/when-is-the-uk-going-to-panic/#commentsThu, 18 Oct 2018 09:09:18 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13794So there has been no progress on Brexit at the European Council that started last night and is carrying on today, and there will be no extra summit about Brexit mid-November either until Michel Barnier reports “decisive progress” in talks. I’d hoped it would not be so, and that a […]

And Brexit is 162 days away. No ratified deal by then and the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal.

Which then leads me to a simple and alarming question:

When is the UK going to panic?

We are approaching the stage where there is no easy way out of this. Not enough time to negotiate something substantially different to what has been negotiated until now, not least because a Withdrawal Agreement has to be ratified and that takes months. Even a Withdrawal Agreement at the 13-14 December European Council leaves everyone with a ridiculously tight timetable.

The EU side is under less pressure – it knows it could survive a No Deal better than the UK can, and it likely better prepared for such a scenario anyway. So it can sit tight and wait for the UK side to cave in, or to panic. The only relevant question now is when that panic starts.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/when-is-the-uk-going-to-panic/feed/5A message to the European Council: please give the UK a Withdrawal Agreement next week, so UK politics can confront its paralysishttps://jonworth.eu/a-message-to-the-european-council-please-give-the-uk-a-withdrawal-agreement-next-week-so-uk-politics-can-confront-its-paralysis/
https://jonworth.eu/a-message-to-the-european-council-please-give-the-uk-a-withdrawal-agreement-next-week-so-uk-politics-can-confront-its-paralysis/#commentsFri, 12 Oct 2018 10:46:46 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13670A week from now leaders of the European Union’s 27+1 Member States will have sore heads after a long night. Friday 19th October will be the second day of the European Council at which the fate of the Brexit negotiations is to be decided. However hard it is, decide something […]

A week from now leaders of the European Union’s 27+1 Member States will have sore heads after a long night. Friday 19th October will be the second day of the European Council at which the fate of the Brexit negotiations is to be decided. However hard it is, decide something they must.

Further delay – on the EU side at least – serves no purpose. No extra summit in mid-November, no prevarication until December. Theresa May needs a Withdrawal Agreement now – for the sake of both sides.

Why the imperative?

Because Parliament in the UK is paralysed, with no end of the paralysis in sight. There is nothing that a few extra weeks can do to alleviate this. No fudge that can magically fill the central overlap of this diagram from Nicolai von Ondarza’s detailed analysis of the UK’s parliamentary predicament. Plus with just 168 days until the end of the Article 50 period there is also no time to return to the drawing board to radically reformulate the withdrawal agreement.

The 10 MPs from the DUP reject any form of Northern Ireland-specific backstop solution, or anything that treats Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. The 40-odd MP strong Brexit hard core of the European Research Group reject anything that would keep the UK in a Customs Union or Single Market post-2020 (they’d prefer No Deal). Meanwhile 20-odd Tory MPs around Anna Soubry and Kenneth Clarke reject anything that takes the UK out of a Customs Union. Try making a majority on the government benches in those circumstances!

There are rumblings that May is seeking to appeal to Labour MPs with her plan, but for that to work she would need to attract a few dozen MPs over to her side, and as Mike Gapes rightly outlines here, she is not going to find the numbers for that.

That the Commons is paralysed this way poses a unique conundrum in UK politics. It is not that the Commons can always decide, but normally it can take a decisive vote to do nothing – look at the never-ending stream of reports and commissions into Heathrow expansion as an example of this, rather than actually committing to building.

But Brexit, operating under the constraints imposed by Article 50 and the 29 March 2019 deadline, is different. A decision is needed from the Commons, because failing that means the UK ends up with a No Deal Brexit – and that is something that no-one other that Brexit revolutionaries want.

The sooner that both sides see this and understand this the better. There is no majority in the House of Commons for any one form of Brexit. And out of that stalemate a number of different ways forward can emerge – an extension to the Article 50 period, the UK advancing towards No Deal Brexit and panic ensuing, or opponents of May’s deal adding criteria (a People’s Vote?) as the price for backing the Withdrawal Agreement.

All of these routes forward are fraught with difficulty and come with major downsides. But an orderly route towards a Withdrawal Agreement that the House of Commons will approve is not possible now.

So, Heads of State and Government at next week’s European Council: please agree a Withdrawal Agreement with May that she can then take back to London and try to sell. It will soon become clear that she cannot, but there are then still 150-odd days until the end of the Article 50 period, allowing something other than a catastrophic No Deal Brexit to be hammered out.

UK politicians need to be confronted with the seriousness of the predicament – the European Council next week can ensure they are, and sooner rather than later.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/a-message-to-the-european-council-please-give-the-uk-a-withdrawal-agreement-next-week-so-uk-politics-can-confront-its-paralysis/feed/7What should the EU do for libraries?https://jonworth.eu/what-should-the-eu-do-for-libraries/
https://jonworth.eu/what-should-the-eu-do-for-libraries/#respondFri, 14 Sep 2018 18:20:38 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13427After having asked myself what libraries are for in my previous post, now the political bit – what can the EU do for libraries? Or what should it do? Ilona Kish from the Public Libraries 2020 programme in Brussels ran a workshop about funding opportunities for libraries here at Next […]

It turns out that P2PU and the Kenyan National Library Service (with some additional exchange of ideas with Köln), have been working on an EU funded project about digital learning. And P2PU has been working with Köln to translate P2PU’s materials into 5 different EU languages – also EU funded. But the projects are of course separate – for the EU thinks EU-internal and EU-external.

And then there is the headache of project funding – it is (relatively) easy to get something moving as a project, but trying to get stable administrative funding for a network like P2PU is one hell of a struggle from EU funds. Nonja spoke of her administration headaches with EU funds and the complexity of the administration. “In Netherlands,” she said to me “never let it be said we are short of money. If you have a good library project we will will find a way to fund it.” But the clear implication was that trying to manoeuvre library projects into EU funding streams was not at all an easy task, and seeking funds nationally was an easier bet.

Look at it from the EU side.

There is a Common Agricultural Policy with its hefty funding. Fisheries and Regional Funding too (some of the latter can help libraries in poor areas no doubt). But there is no EU Libraries Fund. And there is also a logical political reason for that – libraries are not the political responsibility of even national administrations, but local or regional administration in most cases. Those authorities would not be too happy were the EU to be specifically active in this area.

But the phrase “to bring the EU closer to its citizens” passes the lips of plenty of EU politicians. I am never sure what that means normally, but what better place to do that than through libraries? There are 65000 public libraries in Europe. And 100 million people use libraries yearly (that’s 1 in every 5 Europeans). As a presentation from the British Library at the event argued, no other cultural offering anywhere even comes close.

Ilona and her team – through their Public Libraries 2020 project (funded until now by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation!) and their connected MEP Library Group (that has 100 MEPs in it) are making a solid start to try to lobby for the needs of libraries in the EU. But political campaigning and advocacy is hardly something you would normally associate with libraries.

And then what about the 2019 European Elections? What could you do, I asked Katja from Wuppertal. How about bringing MEPs and MEP candidates to libraries, all around Europe in the months before the EP campaign gets crazily busy (namely January-March 2019) and introduce future politicians to what libraries are doing, and how they are changing? “Why not?” she said.

Give to others what attending Next Library gave to me – an insight into the world of libraries that’s diverse and interesting and changing fast – and could probably do with some helping hand from the EU.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/what-should-the-eu-do-for-libraries/feed/0The personal ethics required to become a politician are the very opposite of what the public hope to see in their politicianshttps://jonworth.eu/the-personal-ethics-required-to-become-a-politician-are-the-very-opposite-of-what-the-public-hope-to-see-in-their-politicians/
https://jonworth.eu/the-personal-ethics-required-to-become-a-politician-are-the-very-opposite-of-what-the-public-hope-to-see-in-their-politicians/#commentsThu, 13 Sep 2018 20:14:47 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13401Straightforward honesty, clear ethics, transparency of motives and behaviour, and an ability to acknowledge when one is wrong, are personal values I personally hold dear, and they are – I would argue – values that the general public would like to also see from their politicians. The problem is, as […]

Straightforward honesty, clear ethics, transparency of motives and behaviour, and an ability to acknowledge when one is wrong, are personal values I personally hold dear, and they are – I would argue – values that the general public would like to also see from their politicians.

Yesterday the European Parliament voted its amendments to the Copyright Directive, passing amendments to Article 11 (on the so-called Link Tax) and Article 13 (on Upload Filters), both of which are dangers to the future of the free internet. I’d not expect anything else from christian democrats or social democrats to back this stuff, but we Grüne ought to be solid on this topic.

Not so, it turns out.

6 Grüne MEPs from Germany, and 3 others in the Greens/EFA Group, voted in favour of Upload Filters and in favour of the report as a whole. 3 of the Grüne who backed the report – Bütikofer, Häusling and Heubuch – are seeking re-election at the next European Elections in 2019.

So I summed up what happened in a Twitter thread:

Yesterday's vote on amendments to the Copyright Directive in the EP was controversial – in the main due to two issues, in the main #LinkTax (Article 11) and #UploadFilters (Article 13)

Of course I can explain my vote. But I will not explain it to a person, that, before asking me to explain, first spreads lies about my vote plus denunciations. You should be ashamed of yourself, @jonworth! https://t.co/KZ9tF6AaJ3

Then a couple of Bütikofer’s acolytes join in by liking his tweets calling me a liar. My style, apparently, is wrong. But a MEP of many years standing accusing someone of being a liar without being able to substantiate that… well, that of course is not in any way under the microscope.

Let me get this right – publicly asking a MEP to explain their vote is not right, but a MEP branding someone else a liar is?

Ultimately this is about patronage here in the party. Kefferputz and Fuchs, and indeed others who stayed silent about questionable behaviour in the past, fear what will happen to them were they to say anything. Neither Kefferputz nor Fuchs (who’s also running for the EP) were willing to answer whether they thought I had lied – because had they said there was no lie they would have contradicted the MEP with power of patronage, but had they said there were a lie then they’d have looked as unethical as Bütikofer.

There would other ways here. Bütikofer could have tried to explain why the amendments to Article 13 do not equate to an upload filter, or even defended why an upload filter was OK. Or – as Häusling and Heubuch did – simply say nothing. But no, he chose to dig in and throw his weight around.

And so back to the values outlined at the start of the blog post. Straightforward honesty, clear ethics, transparency of motives and behaviour, and an ability to acknowledge when one is wrong. I still hold those things dear, but as today’s little spat shows, these things do not work in the party. Indeed quite the contrary, for my chances when the list is chosen in November will suffer as a result.

The Grüne had as a slogan “Wir bleiben unbequem” (We’ll stay the uncomfortable ones) at a recent party congress. Days like today make me think that is pretty far from the truth.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/the-personal-ethics-required-to-become-a-politician-are-the-very-opposite-of-what-the-public-hope-to-see-in-their-politicians/feed/2What is a library these days?https://jonworth.eu/what-is-a-library-these-days/
https://jonworth.eu/what-is-a-library-these-days/#respondThu, 13 Sep 2018 16:52:57 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13396Today has been my first day at Next Library, a two day conference about libraries and their future that’s taking place at the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek in Kreuzberg in Berlin. While I am super happy to be able to go to something that’s barely five minutes on foot from where I live, […]

Today has been my first day at Next Library, a two day conference about libraries and their future that’s taking place at the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek in Kreuzberg in Berlin. While I am super happy to be able to go to something that’s barely five minutes on foot from where I live, I nevertheless was a little apprehensive about going to such an event and to be asked to blog and tweet about it – for I am a really low user of libraries.

I read a lot. I consume masses of digital content. I even buy a fair few books, so maybe I ought to borrow them instead. But on a day to day basis I basically never set foot in a library.

With the exception of Bücherhallen Hamburg. That I use as a working space. And to meet people in Hamburg for work meetings. The wifi is solid, it’s 5 minutes from Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. What’s not to like?

The thing is I am not using the Bücherhallen as a regular library. I am using it as a meeting space.

And that then brings me to Next Library.

For today – not least when it came to the presentations from some of the libraries and their projects from the USA, Denmark, Romania and Finland in particular – that is where things are heading, and in all kinds of weird and wonderful and brilliant ways. Game jams in Bucharest libraries. Dogs and cows you can read to in Finland (really!). A multitude of creative social projects in Danish libraries. A brilliant project to use virtual reality to document murals in Reno.

I attended a whole session about libraries running partnerships with other organisations, and how to do that – facilitated by Chicago Public Library and MIT Media Lab. This was an excellent handout from that – it could be applied more widely than just to libraries:

But then where do you go from there? What about organisations that do not fit into these neat categories? What about the ethics of such choices? How could this apply to European libraries where the politics is different?

And then there was even an answer to my issue of place. “We still think that people go to their local library” one attendee said to me over a coffee. “But they do not.” That’s me. And there I was thinking why I was even at the event.

Basically I was hooked. I’ve not been to such an interesting conference in ages. I’m not actually meant to be at the event all of tomorrow, but I am going along anyway – because I am learning a lot. Which I suppose it what ought to happen in an event full of librarians, right?

Tomorrow it is more political, and more blog posts and tweets will follow.

]]>https://jonworth.eu/what-is-a-library-these-days/feed/0Where we are now with Brexit: the Irish border, Blind Brexit and how to get a second referendumhttps://jonworth.eu/where-we-are-now-with-brexit-the-irish-border-blind-brexit-and-how-to-get-a-second-referendum/
https://jonworth.eu/where-we-are-now-with-brexit-the-irish-border-blind-brexit-and-how-to-get-a-second-referendum/#commentsMon, 10 Sep 2018 19:15:01 +0000https://jonworth.eu/?p=13346It’s early September 2018. Officially Brexit – 29 March 2019 – is now just 199 days away. Lest we forget, the Withdrawal Agreement that is due to be agreed is supposed to deal with three issues – citizens rights, budgetary contributions, and the Irish border. There is something like an […]

Lest we forget, the Withdrawal Agreement that is due to be agreed is supposed to deal with three issues – citizens rights, budgetary contributions, and the Irish border. There is something like an agreement on the first two (even though registration of EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens in the EU remains problematic), and the UK government’s insistence on a Brexit transition period up until the end of 2020 (and an agreement to pay into the EU budget as now until then) largely covers the budgetary issue.

But all the EU and the UK actually need is a Withdrawal Agreement, not anything on the future relationship (so Chequers is mostly the latter), is a familiar refrain in response to this (it’s a line I repeatedly hear from commentators I otherwise respect like @odtorson and @mark_johnston). I do not see it that way.

The Northern Ireland backstop is only even needed because the UK Government is intent on pursuing a Hard Brexit, namely leaving the Customs Union and Single Market. In other words, the UK’s medium term view of its future relationship is determining how the EU is dealing with the Irish border issue right now in the Withdrawal Agreement.

Were the UK instead to aim for a Soft Brexit, staying in the Single Market and Customs Union, the backstop issue and the theoretical constitutional issues it throws up evaporate immediately, but the UK Government is not tacking towards the Norway option. The only other way out of this conundrum, short term, is what has come to be known as Blind Brexit, namely to leave the EU but with no idea about how the long term UK-EU relationship will look, but simply with the intention that the border in Ireland will stay open until a solution is found.

But then who is going to go for this, essentially postponing any meaningful discussions about the future UK-EU relationship until after Britain has left? The EU side can probably just about live with it, but Ireland would rightly feel aggrieved – the border problem is just deferred, not solved. Macron is also not keen on Blind Brexit. The slogan for Vote Leave was Take Back Control, but this proposal is the very opposite of that – the UK would commit itself to a Brexit transition period until at least the end of 2020 (and that would probably have to be extended), without any knowledge of how Brexit is ultimately going to look medium term or how to keep the border in Ireland open. Would there be a majority for such a plan in the House of Commons? It’d be tight I think – would Grieve and Soubry go for this? Labour I am pretty sure would not.

Anyone still arguing for the UK to Remain in the EU should also vehemently oppose such a Blind Brexit plan, for once the UK is actually out of the EU – however lacking in detail that Brexit is – so disappears all UK representation in the EU institutions, and then the only route back would be for the UK to re-apply to join sometime using the regular accession procedure, something I cannot see happening for a generation or more. Any further referendum – were it to happen after exit – is pretty much useless then, for all it could decide would be what ongoing relationship with the EU the UK would want as a non-member.

Which leads us to the more interesting argument about a “People’s Vote”, namely a second referendum before the UK leaves the EU. I am not much of a fan of referendums, but Brexit cannot be reversed without one as I see it.

Yet as UCL’s Constitution Unit blog so coherently argues here, trying to organise a further referendum any time before 29 March 2019 is next to impossible, given the complicated legal route to get to that point. There is also the question as to whether such a rushed referendum would in the end be any better than the first one in terms of information and genuine participation.

Which then leads us back to the issue of Brexit delay, something that Nick Clegg spoke of in an interview a few days ago in Die Zeit. Green member of the Bundestag Franziska Brantner argued similarly in August. I’ve been making this case since January. The Article 50 period can be extended with the unanimous agreement of the other 27 Member States of the EU – a high but not insurmountable hurdle, given that the EU also wants to avoid No Deal Brexit, and probably only possible after political upheaval of some sort in the UK. With the clock effectively stopped, both the UK and the EU could breathe a small sigh of relief and try to work out something of more substance than a Blind Brexit – that could then be put to a referendum sometime later (probably in 2020), or – if better thought through than a Blind Brexit – it could command wider parliamentary support. Yes, this would mean that a European Election would have to be organised in the UK, but I see that as a small inconvenience for the EU, and better from a democratic perspective than putting the UK into a transition period outside of the EU in a Blind Brexit situation. The UK MEPs and the UK Commissioner would then leave the institutions if and when Brexit happens.

As time is at a premium and politicians get nervous, so the pressure to strike a deal – any deal – will grow. But there are other ways forward here if politicians, especially in the UK, are brave enough to take them. By mid-November, or about 70 days from now, we’ll probably know how this is going to work out.